CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The State Public Service Commission is being asked to review a proposed settlement in the Mountaineer Gas rate hike request case.
The company came to an agreement Tuesday with the PSC staff, the the Consumer Advocate Division and the West Virginia Energy Users Group. Originally, Mountaineer had requested a $12 million rate hike, but the agreement is to recommend a $7.7 million dollar hike.
“We didn’t like parts of their (original) filing, which included something called a future test year,” Tom White, the Deputy Director for Consumer Advocate Division of the PSC said. “Which is kind of a change in the way this commission does business.”
White said that since the filing in January, the staff had been trying to reach some sort of compromise, going back and forth on the numbers.
“We came back with our own numbers that the company didn’t like,” he explained. “We sat down and spent several days trying to reach some sort of compromise. Everybody gives a little bit, but you end up coming up with something reasonable for both parties.”
The Public Service Commission will begin looking at the proposal on Wednesday. White pointed out that their decision is final and they can alter the proposal whichever way they see fit.
“The Commission has to look at it and see if they agree that it’s a reasonable outcome,” White said. “They can change it, they can modify it, they can reject it. They can do whatever they want. Some weeks from now, the commission will issue an order doing whatever it does. Whether it adopts the (proposal) in it’s entirety or makes some changes there’s no way for me to know.”
The proposed plan will result in an overall rate increase of approximately 3 percent, and would be effective on Nov. 1.
The original request would have resulted in roughly a 4.7 percent increase.